Pesachim 72 - 78

by Rabbi Moshe Newman

“The same way it goes in, so too that is the way it goes out.”

Rabba stated this well-known rule of kashrut and kashering utensils to a specific case in our gemara. He permits meat that is broiled with other unsalted meat stuffed inside it, although the inner meat contains blood that is forbidden to eat. Rabba explains that although the outer meat absorbs the blood that comes out from the inner piece of meat when heated in the fire, that same blood comes out from the outer piece of meat through the same manner of being broiled by the fire — and all of the meat is therefore kosher.

Pesachim 74a

“The Torah mitzvah to ‘love one your fellow person like yourself’ (Vayikra 19:18) teaches that the court must choose a dignified manner when applying capital punishment.”

Rav Nachman teaches this on our daf as to explain why one of the death penalties stated in the Torah — “sereifa” (burning) – should not be done by pouring boiling water on or into the person to be executed by the Sanhedrin. “Loving one’s fellow man” is a mitzvah that extends even to someone who has willfully transgressed a capital crime, and although he deserves to die he should do so in a dignified and humane manner.

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